Field devices as described in this disclosure may, for instance, be employed in room automation or in power management. These field devices may be arranged stand-alone or as an installation with several communicating units. Contemporary field devices provide controllers and actuators to manage a wide range of disciplines such as heating, ventilation, air conditioning, hazard detection, lighting, fan coils, and blinds.
A wide range of communication busses and protocols exist that provides communication functions in between field devices. Typically, wireless solutions such as WLAN, KNX® RF, and/or Enocean® are employed. Hard-wired solutions are also on the market. These frequently rely on Ethernet® cables or on KNX® cables. The choice of any particular wireless or hard-wired solution is also affected by bandwidth requirements. Devices with video streaming functionality may, for instance, require more bandwidth than other types of field devices.
In addition to these busses, the field devices may communicate using various protocols. There are cases where the devices of an installation rely on a single protocol such as KNX®, Modbus, LON or BACnet®. In addition, a number of proprietary protocols exist.
Installations exist with various field devices using different protocols. In order to ensure compatibility within an installation, installations with different protocols commonly harness converters. Converters are used to translate one protocol into to another protocol. Input/output modules (IO modules) are an alternative solution to be considered in conjunction with installations with different protocols. Input/output modules that translate between different protocols may actually come as part of a field device. A field device with a built-in input/output module thus lowers the number of independent devices and the overall complexity of an installation. Analogue busses may also be used to overcome compatibility issues. Analogue busses transfer signals in analogue form thereby eliminating the need to translate between digital protocols.
Converters, IO modules, and/or analogue busses frequently result in extra effort required for commissioning and/or for maintenance. Also, the use of converters, of IO modules, and/or of analogue busses typically involves cost penalties.
For configuration and/or for test purposes, field devices frequently comprise human-machine interfaces (HMIs). A human machine interface may either by fully implemented on a device. In this case, an operator may directly interact with the field device. To that end, field devices typically comprise displays and input functionalities such as buttons, keyboards, voice recognition etc. A field device may also implement an interface such that a communication channel is established between a (portable) computer and/or a handheld device and the field device. The interface may, by way of non-limiting example, be a RS-232 port, a RS-422 port, a RS485 port, a USB port, or similar. An operator may then enter data and read configurations through a portable computer and/or a handheld device.